Coffee, caffeine and cellulite: fact vs myth
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All you ever wanted to know about caffeine / coffee, weight loss, fat reduction and cellulite
Does coffee help with cellulite? Can I lose weight with caffeine?
Caffeine + diet + exercise = weight loss
What about cellulite creams with caffeine?
Why not apply caffeine cream all over the body?
Caffeine cream + exercise + diet = spot fat reduction
Why does caffeine cause cellulite? Does coffee cause cellulite?
It all depends on how you metabolise caffeine
With caffeine, coffee or tea it’s all about quantity
Caffeine actually reduces cellulite when applied topically
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So what is true: caffeine causes cellulite or reduces it? Because not both can be true.
Caffeine and coffee are constantly in the news and everyone talks about it in relation to dieting, weight loss, cellulite and cellulite creams. Yet, everyone offers conflicting advice.
So the immediate question is: where does the truth lie with caffeine? Read our extensive guide.
Does coffee help with cellulite? Can I lose weight with caffeine?
Caffeine is the most widely known lipolytic chemical (lipolytic is a chemical that "breaks down" fat molecules). However, as everybody knows, coffee or caffeine itself does not help you lose weight. Why is that?
The answer is simple: caffeine does indeed help break down triglycerides (fat molecules) inside fat cells and stimulates fat cells to release those triglycerides out of fat cells and into the bloostream.
However, if fat is not oxidised (“burned”) for energy in muscles or other organs, it will inevitably be absorbed by another adipocyte (fat cell) somewhere else in the body and stored there.
So unless you burn the fat with exercise or diet, the fat released by caffeine will end up back into another fat cell somewhere in the body. In this case, all that caffeine will help you achieve, is to move fat from one fat cell to another. Not very effective.
On the other hand, if you do eat less and exercise more, the fat released due to caffeine, exercise, diet or all of the above, will be oxidised into carbon dioxide and water. Carbon dioxide and water will then be expelled from the body via the lungs and urine/sweat, respectively.
This is why caffeine-containing diet pills, or a lot of coffee or a lot of tea, do NOT work on their own, i.e. they do not work for either weight loss or cellulite, without diet or exercise.
Caffeine just stimulates the expulsion of fat from fat cells. But the rest, i.e. burning the expelled fat, is your job.
Caffeine + diet + exercise = weight loss
So in summary:
Caffeine + diet + exercise = results
Caffeine on it's own = just shuffling fat from one fat cell to another = waste of time and unnecessary jitters
What about cellulite creams with caffeine?
On the other hand, caffeine applied locally (as in anti-cellulite creams which contain caffeine) is effective in reducing LOCAL fat.
This because it does help break down and expel fat molecules from fat cells IN THAT SPECIFIC area where it is applied, and thereby reduces LOCALISED fat deposits and cellulite.
Of course, if you don't exercise or diet when you apply the caffeine-containing cellulite cream, less fat will be released.
And whatever fat is released will end up in the blood circulation and it will be redeposited somewhere else in the body (as we explained above). In fact, some of it may actually be redeposited on the same area.
That's why you need to exercise / diet when you use a cellulite cream. If you don't, you just reduce the effectiveness of the cream and waste some of your money down the drain.
On the other hand, if you exercise/diet AND use an anti-cellulite cream (with or without caffeine) on a specific area, you can reduce cellulite and local fat from that specific area.
This is called spot fat reduction and it is impossible by just exercising a specific muscle on that area. Spot fat reduction is only possible with a good cellulite treatment and/or a good cellulite treatment, ideally combined with exercise and diet.
Why not apply caffeine cream all over the body?
If you are going to bathe in a caffeine-containing cream, just drink coffee instead. As far as subcutaneous fat reduction is concerned, it’s almost the same thing.
It does not really make sense to apply a caffeine / cellulite cream all over your body, because then you do not achieve a localised effect and the result of the whole body application is equivalent to basically just drinking coffee.
As we described on the first paragraph of this article, this is pointless.
So be smart and use an anti-cellulite cream locally (on one or two body areas max) and don't waste money on slapping it all over your entire body.
It just doesn’t work that way.
Caffeine cream + exercise + diet = spot fat reduction
So in summary:
Caffeine cream + exercise + diet = spot fat reduction
Caffeine cream on it's own = reduced effectiveness
Caffeine cream all over the body = same as drinking coffee = shuffling fat from one fat cell to another
Why does caffeine cause cellulite? Does coffee cause cellulite?
Actually caffeine does NOT cause cellulite.
The idea that caffeine causes cellulite is one of those urban myths propagated by (thousands of) shallow beauty “experts” the world over, who are totally misinformed.
The theory that caffeine causes cellulite is based on caffeine's ability to potentially cause water retention, if consumed in excessive doses, such as 10 cups of coffee a day. Caffeine acts on the kidneys, producing a diuretic effect.
With such excessive consumption, some people's kidneys may become dependent on their caffeine fix and so when those people do not get their fix, they develop water retention.
However, most people drink 2-3 cups of coffee or tea a day and that is not nearly enough to cause this caffeine withdrawal water retention effect.
Furthermore, most women develop much more severe water retention by taking the contraceptive pill or by living a sedentary life, than by overdosing on caffeine. Sugar, alcohol, smoking and constipation are other important causes of water retention.
Furthermore, water retention is just one of the aspects of cellulite. Fat accumulation, skin looseness, inflammation, fibrosis, free radical damage and glycation are equally important aspects - and none of them are caused by caffeine.
Those aspects are negatively affected by the other causes of cellulite (hormonal contraception, sedentary lifestyle, sugar/carb/fried food consumption, alcohol and smoking) but NOT by caffeine.
It all depends on how you metabolise caffeine
Furthermore, it is well known that the effects of caffeine largely depend on the ease by which someone's liver neutralises caffeine.
Personally I get jittery with just one cup of coffee, so I would not even dream of having 3 or more cups of coffee a day, as this would exhaust my nervous system and adrenal glands in just a few days.
On the other hand, some people can actually fall asleep with a cup of coffee in their hand. Clearly these people can consume larger amounts of caffeine with no side effects, because not much active caffeine metabolite makes it to the different body organs and tissues.
Women who are more sensitive to caffeine will be affected more by it, while those who are resistant to caffeine's effects, will not feel any negative side-effects.
With caffeine, coffee or tea it’s all about quantity
For women who do not consume more than 3-4 caffeinated drinks per day (i.e. coffee, energy drinks such as "Red Bull", tea, green tea etc), caffeine is not a cause of cellulite, whatsoever
For women who consume something like 10 caffeinated drinks a day, caffeine is indeed a factor, but I would worry more about the sugar that is found in those cups of coffee or energy drinks, the biscuits that consumed concurrently with coffee or the overall lifestyle imbalance that such a high caffeine consumption betrays, rather than caffeine itself
For women who consume 5-6 caffeinated drinks per day and suffer from cellulite I would say that caffeine could potentially be 10% responsible for your cellulite, with inactivity, unhealthy diet, hormonal contraception, smoking and drinking comprising the remaining 90%.
Caffeine actually reduces cellulite when applied topically
To close, I would like to mention that caffeine has both a lipolytic (fat releasing) and circulation-enhancing effect when applied locally, hence the use of caffeine in anti-cellulite creams.
Furthermore, the antioxidants contained in coffee, tea and green tea have an anti-cellulite effect, due to their anti-glycation, antioxidant, anti-adipogenic and anti-inflammatory action, so we are not sure that even high doses of coffee or tea can cause cellulite on their own.
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